


It's Letting Go

by atomiccourier



Series: Atom I.C. Courier [8]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, and mentions of team dead money, this just in: atom enjoys running for his life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomiccourier/pseuds/atomiccourier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atom's adventures in the Sierra Madre Casino, and how it changes him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Letting Go

The calm part of your mind notes that you really should have checked the other door before approaching the radio, but it is quickly is snuffed out by bloody red fear. You stumble, your foot catching on the ground. A spike of buzz runs violently up your knee as it collides with the floor. You can’t take your eyes off the radio on the table before you. You really should have been looking at the circular ceiling vents that were spewing gas. The room is tipping sideways and the floor slams upwards into the side of your face. Maria skitters away from your limp hand. Your lungs are the only things moving, hyperventilating miles ahead of the tempo that the voice from the radio creates. A shadow falling across your shoulder overtakes your sight. The voice from the radio fills your ears like lead. As your eyes roll back in your head, you are truly the most afraid you’ve ever been.

 

\--

 

Your own coughing is what wakes you up first. Then, the feel of stone scraping against your forehead and hands, which are filthy and scratched up compared to how they were before. You’ve been put into an outfit which is too thin, and you don’t like the way it moves against your skin as you push yourself up onto your haunches. Turns out it’s a disgusting one-piece. You hear a voice and turn your head to look at a fountain. More specifically, at the hologram above it that oh so kindly demands your attention. Then it mentions a collar, and you slowly, carefully, raise your hands up to prove it's existence. Oh. Shit.

 

\--

 

One of the first things you notice about this place is how constantly you have to be on your toes. There are no true safe places. The collars will help with any trust issues if you find a partner, and need someone to keep watch while one of you sleeps, but you can never be completely certain of anything. The air makes you cough. The ghost fuckers are terrifying. You’re never going to be able to see sudden beeping and static the same non-fear-inducing way. This place is practically hell. You hope you can stand the others when you meet them.

 

\--

 

You spend a good half an hour hiding from the ghosts and panicking. The realization that you’re in an unknown place, that you could die at any moment, and you have basically no control over anything, is terrifying, and hits you suddenly. You hope the others aren’t like this.

 

\--

 

Your new teammates, as you collect them, are at least tolerable. Dog listens, and you would be at least acquaintances if you had met under better circumstances. You pity him for whatever trauma he’s endured. After him you meet Dean. He’s the least trustworthy of them all, but more predictable. You’re used to his type filling the casinos in Vegas. Christina is probably the one you connect to most. She wakes up, mildly confused and unable to properly communicate. You’re able to kind of understand her motioning, unlike the other two, so she is more reliant on you. 

 

\--

 

Later, when you’re going back through the medical facility, you find the Assassin’s outfit and a few of the positives hit you. These new companions will be completely without judgement. They don’t care about you personally, they just want to get out. If you all survive, they’ll likely repress their memories of this place. If you die, your identity will be protected by the loss of a head and probably most of a body. No one has to know. Not for long. You put the assassin’s uniform on and your ass looks great.

 

\--

 

It's impossible. You just can’t spear the right passing train of thought to get into this terminal. A passing glance at Christina leaning on the wall, waiting for you to finish almost makes bile rise up in your throat. You’re going to have to do this. You stand up, rubbing at your temples. Saying her name gets her attention. You tell her you’re going to ride the elevator up and get a better look around, see if there’s any other terminals up there. She nods and you open the elevator for her. She steps in. You close the door, and she almost immediately starts banging her fists on the metal. Your face scrunches up. You take a deep breath, and send her down to the basement.

 

\--

 

Passing out again, when entering the casino this time, is significantly less traumatic. Your partners are there two, albeit also passing out, and it’s beginning to become routine. The jackass who sent you here wakes you up through the speakers. The sound of static startles you now. You don’t understand what all he sees in the place. It’s not too unlike the casinos in Vegas. Still, it’s bigger and fancier, and you have to find the others. You get moving.

 

\--

 

The first time you hear her voice, you don’t recognize it as the one from the radio, because it’s filled with malice. She threatens you with the holograms, with the traps, with what you did to her. You have to detach, escape. It costs you a few bullets in the calf and a laser across your lower back, but saves some emotional stability.

 

When you find her, you force yourself to reconnect, but you still run. You can’t bear to hurt her again. You have to stop to rest halfway back to the elevator, because of your leg, but you realize she isn’t following you, and you limp your way back to where she stands over the limp body of a woman. She talks to you about her, and you listen.

 

\--

 

You really are a sadist aren’t you? Who finds enjoyment from running for their life? One day you’ll do this on the regular, but it can’t be a healthy desire. Your accomplishments push you forward, faster and faster, streaking across the floor and up the wall to swerve around a tight corner. You watched Elijah get beat up by his own sentries. You saved Dog, Dean, and Christine. You defied the Sierra Madre’s curse. Now you run from the beeping on your neck, catapulting up and over the various struts and through the tunnels. Adrenaline burns in you like fire, and you’re as excited as you are terrified. You tumble into the elevator as it opens, curling up against the back wall as you collapse, hyperventilating

 

There is a pair of wire cutters waiting for you when you exit, stumbling. There is a tag  tied on one of the handles that reads “To Atom.” You grab them as you walk, snapping the collar off, tossing the cutters down and flinging your hand out, sending the collar hurtling out of of the pink tinged window to your right.

 

\--

 

You listen to the radio again. It’s voice fills you as you stand before it, fingertips resting gratefully on its sides. It’s the same voice, though at the same time it is not. You think about how that parallels your own existence. You smile. She says you can return to the villa one day. You tell her you will. You love it like you love the wasteland. It is terrifying, unforgiving, deadly, and beautiful. You trace a fingertip down it’s side as you listen to the message repeat. A new message for future travelers to find. One for you.

 

\--

 

When the doors of the elevator open, and you step out, you’re immediately gripped in an embrace by good old grandma Lily, with Rex jumping at your calves. You tell them to round everyone up for story time. You drop off all your new loot into their respective containers, and set up the table in the rec-room to your liking as they gather. Their faces show how worried they are. You only told Arcade even the most basic details of what happened in Zion. But here you smile, run a hand through your hair; and tell them everything.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the longest fic ive ever written tbh. you're welcome atom
> 
> maybe i should finish that drabble about atom comparing himself to a fly swatter, because it really gives insight to why he's a sadist like this.


End file.
